Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacts as he speaks at the Viva Tech start-up and technology summit in Paris, France.
Reuters/Charles Platiau

Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook executives at a meeting in June that he was going to be a more aggressive CEO in light of criticism over the company's handling of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday night.

The new approach is causing "unprecedented turmoil" in Facebook's most senior ranks, according to the report.

According to the article, Zuckerberg also told employees at a recent Q&A that recent negative media stories were "bulls---."

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a meeting of top executives in June that he would become a more aggressive CEO because the company was at "war," according to the Wall Street Journal.

The meeting came at a time when users, lawmakers, and investors were angry over the company's handling of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The 34-year-old CEO reportedly expressed frustrations that executives weren't moving quick enough at times this year and said it was time for executives to "make progress faster."

The report added that the new approach had caused "unprecedented turmoil" in Facebook's most senior ranks, and had led to the departures of a number of top executives, including the cofounders of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Facebook came under fire again last week after a New York Times report detailed how COO Sheryl Sandberg oversaw an "aggressive lobbying campaign" to hurt its critics, including liberal billionaire George Soros.

The New York Times report found that Facebook employed a "Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protestors, in part by linking them" to Soros.

"It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic," the report stated.

At a Q&A with Facebook employees at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California two days after the report was published, Zuckerberg called recent negative coverage in the media as "bulls---," according to the report.